A tribute to Byron White.

• Author: Tagliabue, Paul
• Position: Testimonial

Byron "Whizzer" White set a standard--both on and off the field--that few others have approached, let alone equaled. As the NFL concludes its eighty-fourth season, it is appropriate to remember Whizzer White, a man who uniquely combined and epitomized a range of values that players in the League continue to strive to attain. The contribution of athletics to White's character and later accomplishments, particularly in public service, also has striking relevance to the current debate on the place of athletics in higher education. (1)

Even a brief review of Whizzer White's accomplishments highlights his extraordinary place in American--and NFL--history. He still ranks as one of the greatest college football players of all time, having achieved distinction on the gridiron while earning both a Phi Beta Kappa key and a Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Colorado. White's success as a collegiate scholar-athlete was followed by three seasons during which, first for the Pittsburgh Pirates (now Pittsburgh Steelers) and then for the Detroit Lions, he led the NFL in rushing while studying law at Yale, where he finished first in his class. Those achievements led the legendary owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Art Rooney, who knew thousands of professional football players during his Hall of Fame career, to observe, "Of all the athletes I have known in my lifetime, I'd have to say Whizzer White came as close to anyone to giving 100 percent of himself when he was in competition." (2)

Notwithstanding his extraordinary accomplishments on the field and in the classroom, White was a man, to paraphrase Kipling, who could walk with Presidents but not lose the common touch. Johnny Blood, Pittsburgh's colorful player-coach, said of his teammate, "We had a lot rougher life in those days, but he fit right in. He was a man with a hoe, you know. He's no ivory tower person; he's no dreamer." (3) President Kennedy, who served with White during the Pacific campaign and later appointed him to the Supreme Court, made the point succinctly, "[He] was no mere professor or scholar, but had actually seen life." (4) One example illustrates the point: In 1940, when White took summer classes at the University of Colorado Law School, he waited tables even though he had been the highest-paid player in the NFL that year. When asked why, he replied, with characteristic modesty, "I waited table[s] for my board when I was in school here.... It's a good way to earn your food and you don't make money to go to school." (5)

White recognized that his experience as an athlete provided a solid basis for his later career in public life, including public service: (6)

This business of performing under some kind of pressure and being willing to face up to requirements proves its utility in other activities of life.... I am in favor of exposing young people to situations that require the highest performance on a regular basis. While athletics are a manufactured environment, there comes that moment when you stand face to face with doing. The moment--perhaps a fraction of a second--comes when you either do or you don't. (7) With specific reference to football, he remarked, "This kind of experience is valuable in maturing one. It contributes to one's self reliance, initiative, and integrity.... [And] it is damn good fun, which is not to be sneezed at." (8)

White's upbringing in Colorado surely led him to recognize the extent to which participation in athletics develops qualities and values critical to success in life after sports. But his later experiences at Oxford and Yale no doubt reinforced this conviction. As Yale's former president and later Commissioner of Major League Baseball A. Bartlett Giamatti so well demonstrated, both universities have long traditions teaching that participation in athletics is indispensable preparation for success on far more important playing fields and battlegrounds of life. (9) White would surely be pleased if our society's institutions more effectively embraced these traditions today.

White's unique blend of intellectual talent, physical skills, and dedication was the basis for a life of achievement in widely diverse roles. A series of images and anecdotes from White's early years captures what it meant to him to be both a scholar and an athlete, and how seriously he took both roles:

* When his coach at Colorado, seeing White reading a textbook, told him to study a playbook instead, White replied, "You take care of the football. I'll take care of the books." (10)

* Within twenty-four hours of scoring every point for Colorado in a classic victory over local power Utah, White learned that he had been selected for Phi Beta Kappa.

* After being selected for a Rhodes Scholarship, White had to decide between Oxford and the NFL. In a decision followed closely by the press, White managed to do both by being the first person ever to defer his Rhodes Scholarship.

* Upon arriving at Oxford, where he was not allowed to play sports, White remarked, "Thank God." He later explained, "I was so tired of athletics. It was just like coming out into the sunshine, to go to school and not have to go out and knock your damn brains out at three o'clock every day." (11)

* Justice Potter Stewart, White's classmate at Yale, described White as "both Clark Kent and Superman," studying intensely in the law library with his steel-rimmed glasses and then playing NFL football on the weekend. (12)

* Bouncing between games on the team train for the Pittsburgh Pirates, while his teammates played cards, White studied law books. (13)

As the New York Times reported, "In the full glare of national publicity, [White] juggled his two worlds to a degree that would be inconceivable today." (14) Even White agreed with that observation:

I don't know whether I would have ever put up with what these college guys go through now.... I would think it would be terribly difficult these days, balancing. There weren't anywhere near the pressures on people those...